Rudi's Original Stroopwafels

7.5 /10

Hot stroopwafel off the iron at Albert Cuyp, syrup still running.

The blue and white cart in the middle of the Albert Cuyp market has been pressing stroopwafels since 1978, and the smell alone reorganises the queue every few minutes. Rudi learned the trade in Gouda, which in stroopwafel terms is like training in Naples for pizza, and the family still bakes to that recipe. Order the fresh one. A ball of dough goes into the iron, gets split while hot, filled with warm syrup and handed over soft in the middle, crisp at the rim, nothing like the shrink-wrapped discs at the airport. Two fifty, eaten in the market crush between cheese stalls and fabric sellers, syrup on your fingers where it belongs. The chocolate-dipped version exists for tourists and children, and fine, it is also good. Mind the odd hours: no wafels on Wednesdays, Thursdays or Sundays, because proper family businesses rest.